Like filmmaker P. T. Anderson's hailed "Magnolia," the mesmerizing,
multifarious ensemble drama "Carnage" ponders the mystery of random,
potentially life-altering connections between people. The catalyst
and linking entity in "Carnage," the debut feature from
writer/director Delphine Gleize, is a bull killed in Spain after it
gores a matador. While the matador lies comatose in a hospital, the
dead bull is chopped apart, and the pieces are sent to various
European markets. Winnie, a little epileptic girl, watches the goring
on French TV. Her parents buy one of the bull's bones for their dog.
Struggling actress/new-age seeker Carlotta (Chiara Mastroianni) sells
them the bone at her part-time supermarket job. A university
researcher (Jacques Gamblin) with a pregnant wife (Lio) and a
wandering eye procures the bull's eyes to study. A poor taxidermist
(Bernard Sens) gets the horns as a present. A distressed woman
(Angela Molina), whose daughter (Lucia Sanchez) is Winnie's teacher,
dines on the bull's meat at a restaurant. "Carnage" comes to no pat
conclusion, but most of the characters are transformed by the final
reel, and Gleize brings inventive imagery and devilish humor to the
interlocked storylines.